President Obama’s accidental diplomacy

The president seemed eager to turn lemons into lemonade Monday. | AP Photo

Analysts warned that the outcome of the Russian diplomatic drive was far from certain. Indeed, even though Syria’s foreign minister seemed to bless the idea of putting the country’s chemical weapons stocks in international hands, the Russians said they hadn’t gotten any sign off from the Syria government.

Further complicating the situation is that Syria has always denied having chemical weapons.

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The greatest enthusiasm for the Russian effort seemed to come from Capitol Hill, particularly from lawmakers who had publicly announced support for Obama’s call to authorize a military strike.

“I voted yes in the [Senate Foreign Relations] committee but I have concerns about action, right now we need to deal with #Syria via diplomacy if possible,” Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) wrote on Twitter.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) sounded particularly intrigued by the Russian effort. “I have read the announcement by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that his country has asked Syria to transfer control of its chemical weapons to international monitors for destruction to prevent an international strike. I would welcome such a move,” she said in a statement.

“Frankly, what has happened with Russia may be the game changer,” Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.) told reporters. “I am hoping it will be.”

While sounding a note of caution about the proposal, Moran made evident his relief at anything that could avert the House taking an up-or-down vote on a resolution to give Obama the OK to use force.

“Everything that avoids a vote on the House floor would be helpful,” he said, according to Slate.

Gelb said he could foresee Congress taking up a revised resolution that calls for quick international action, but stays vague about what the U.S. will do if the process bogs down.

Gati said the U.S. could have seized the diplomatic initiative weeks ago by publicly floating a similar proposal, but may have flinched because of questions about putting Americans into the violent civil war in Syria to oversee any effort to find and decommission chemical weapons.

“If we’d had this proposal four weeks ago, it would have been brilliant,” she said. “I think the reason [the U.S. didn’t] is ‘boots on the ground.’ Because we could do something clean and easy using missiles and planes, that became the option. But getting rid of these weapons requires going in, putting people potentially in harm’s way and that wasn’t part of the plan.”

However, others said there was no sign before Monday that such an idea would have had any chance of being embraced by the Russians.

“Clearly this proposal is not something that existed or was on the table 24 hours or 36 hours ago,” said Heather Hurlburt of the Democratic-leaning National Security Network.”I think it’s totally fair for the White House to say as they have been in the past few hours, ‘This is only happening because we were out there with a credible threat of military response.’”

Hurlburt even said the White House could spin the Russian effort as a victory of sorts, if it is sustained. “Getting Russia to own some piece of the Syria catastrophe and getting Russia to own the idea of having some responsibility to control weapons of mass destruction would be a huge policy win for the U.S.,” she said.

“Clearly, the domestic politics and the international politics have come together,” Hurlburt added.

However, Gati noted that even a politically convenient resolution to the current standoff over chemical weapons would not mean an end to the massive bloodshed in Syria’s ongoing civil war.

”All the while Assad will still be able to kill as many people as he wants using any other means,” she said.